pretty cool reading
In Leaving the State of Nature, Varden seeks to reevaluate misrepresentations of Kant’s political philosophy regarding the role of civil society and the state of nature in relation to humanity. To do this, she juxtaposes the theories of justice/social contract Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau propose against the Kantian rendition.
Kant builds on the ideas of his predecessors, but the key distinction Varden seeks to highlight is the “false dichotomy” that Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau create between the State of Nature and Civil Society. For Hobbes, security is contingent on leaving the state of nature and entering into civil society. Locke holds a similar sentiment in that the natural progression of humanity is movement from the state of nature into civil society--except in this case the entrance into civil society is a means toward securing just interactions between individuals in the development of property ownership. Rousseau takes a different angle, framing the entrance into civil society as a, sort of, reinforcement of social inequality where dominant social groups create rules that facilitate their oppression. Of course, there is more nuance to each of these accounts but I think these descriptions showcase the main point that Varden is trying to make in the first place which is that this sharp distinction between a society being in the state of nature and the state of civility is limiting.
Varden uses Kant’s liberal republicanism as a vehicle for proposing an alternative conception of the social contract theories of the past, one that blends the state of nature and civil society. To do this, she calls on Kant’s four legal-political conditions of anarchy, barbarism, despotism, and republic, as well as Kant’s two non-ideal theories of moral anthropology and principles of politics as means of pursuing his “ideal theory of freedom” (1). Contrasting the fundamental premises that Hobbes and Locke were operating under in their accounts, Kant does not ground his account in “a right to preservation” (13). For Hobbes and Locke justice can’t be derived within the state of nature, thus making entrance into civil society a necessity for inevitable humans interaction. But for Kant, his moral anthropology supposes that the sense of what is “right or wrong” is something that humans are predisposed to, giving them access to the development of this intuition prior to civil society. With this being said, Varden acknowledges that the account of moral anthropology alone “is insufficient to get the complexities of actual, historical societies properly into view" (14). Once delineating what is “right” per moral anthropology, the principles of politics are called upon to contextualize moral progression in the empirical analysis of historical society.
In conjunction with the aforementioned legal-political conditions, Varden views Kant’s moral anthropology and principles of politics as a means of correcting unjust social realities. Without explaining each one of them, the legal political conditions can be used to diagnose “pockets of injustice” in “otherwise just societies” and allow us to address them “in more complex ways and hence offer a more complete liberal republican theory than those currently available” (18). Varden is essentially suggesting that Kant’s framework is more comprehensive than that of his predecessors, and we should adopt it as it allows us to conceive of justice and pursue it in a more rigorous way.
I personally am inclined to agree with Varden, finding particular attraction to Kant’s affirmation of human predispositions of “good.” I think the place where I got a little bit lost in Varden’s paper was in her account of anarchism within Kant's political conditions. Varden writes that "anarchy is the absence of violence and the presence of freedom and law, meaning that in the best of scenarios all we can achieve here is the absence of injustice and the presence of law and freedom" (11). If justice cannot be manifested in the "best of scenarios" due to anarchies lack of violence, does that suggest that violence, to some degree, is a precondition of justice? I think the idea that justice can in no way be attained within anarchy--despite its principles of freedom and law--is peculiar. I may be biased because I do believe these questions of anarchic society (to some degree) raise important points of contemplation regarding the way authority is meant to function in relation to individuals and communities.
Hey Shiraz, great blog post! I'm writing to try and respond to your question in the final paragraph. You ask whether violence is a precondition for justice under Kant's anarchy condition.
ReplyDeleteYou correctly find that, according to Varden, "anarchy is the absence of violence and the presence of freedom and law, meaning that in the best of scenarios all we can achieve here is the absence of injustice and the presence of law and freedom" (11). Kant (as interpreted by Varden) explicitly characterizes anarchy as lacking violence, defined specifically as arbitrary or destructive coercion. The reason anarchy is free from arbitrary coercion is that, in Kant’s ideal scenario, individuals voluntarily follow commonly accepted laws out of mutual respect for each other's freedom, without the need for external enforcement.
However, Kant argues justice still cannot be realized under these conditions because, while anarchy lacks arbitrary violence, it also lacks coercion that is rechtlich—rightful or legally justified. For Kant, genuine justice requires the presence of rechtlich coercion, or Zwang, defined explicitly as rightful coercion authorized and enforced by a legitimate public authority. This rightful coercion inherently involves at least the credible threat of force, but this force is strictly controlled, justified by universal laws, and distinct from arbitrary violence. Since Kant explicitly defines anarchy as lacking all forms of coercion, including this rechtlich form of Zwang, it cannot provide genuine justice. Without authoritative enforcement backed by rightful coercion, even voluntary adherence to law leaves individual rights fundamentally insecure and vulnerable. As Varden emphasizes, the best achievable scenario under anarchy is merely the absence of injustice, never actual justice itself. Genuine justice demands the authoritative guarantee provided by rechtlich coercion.
I think its cool that this interpretation contrasts sharply with our intuitive understanding of "anarchy." Most of us associate anarchy intuitively with disorder, chaos, and pervasive violence because no public authority exists to enforce laws. Kant challenges this intuitive association by defining anarchy as inherently peaceful and voluntarily lawful, emphasizing instead that the mere absence of violence isn't enough for true justice. In doing so, Kant underscores the indispensable role of rightful coercion (rechtlich Zwang) in securing justice.
Kant and Varden do not view arbitrary violence as a necessary precondition for justice. Instead, justice fundamentally rests upon coercion that is rechtlich—coercion exercised rightfully by public authority to universally protect rights. Varden explicitly supports this interpretation when discussing the infeasibility of securing property, contract, and status rights without authoritative enforcement. She writes clearly: "these principles cannot be combined with an authoritative source of physical force that establishes them as a coercive legal-political framework of law within which people interact. This is a problem of assurance, which is, ultimately, solved by the public authority’s monopoly on coercion and executive function" (7).
The word choice "violence" remains interesting and peculiar. Kant carefully differentiates arbitrary violence from legitimate coercion—emphasizing that only the latter can genuinely realize justice. But why does Kant require the reader to move from recognizing that anarchy lacks illegitimate coercion (because no coercive authority exists) to concluding that it also lacks rightful coercion (rechtlich Zwang)? I’m not entirely sure.